A multicultural cast when the text does not call for it, and the shoehorning of trans actors in every project, is not displaying a willingness for inclusion but the existence of fear. It is not an act of defiance and bravery; it’s the opposite of both: it’s a way to silence uncomfortable arguments, to silence dissent. And to make money! It is not an act of rebellion and kindness but the path of least resistance.
The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s IMAX adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, is in many respects a movie that could only have been made at this particular moment in time. It’s not timeless, as you would expect. It is, on the contrary, a snapshot of the present, reflecting very accurately where we are as a culture.
Thematically, morally, The Odyssey belongs in the sphere of ancient Greece, not ours. Its aesthetics, its sense of justice and spirituality belong in a world that existed thousands of years ago in a specific historical and geographical context. It can be creatively interpreted only up to a point, and not without losing a part of what makes it so fascinating to us still. You can’t insert contemporary morality, prosaic linguistic modernisms, race and sex swaps in terms of casting that are meant to promote very specific, very contemporary issues, without changing the very core of this ancient masterpiece of literature. Likewise, you can’t detach from the myth the culture that created it and which still survives at its core. And you can’t make it your own by doing the above. Only taint it, make it smaller. Ordinary.
Turning an ancient epic poem into a contemporary liberal political manifesto or a vehicle for identity politics is just a waste. You can’t judge a classic story in retrospect. Use contemporary views to reshape it according to your hindsight or personal obsessions. The story does not exist out of context, even when it deals with the universal themes of love, homecoming, betrayal, revenge, fear of the unknown, desire for adventure, love for one’s family (and one’s dog) etc.; there is – much like in all great fantasy stories - a specificity to it, that cannot be reduced to a simplistic moral lesson or a political message. There is a particularity to the myth that is the reason it survived for nearly three millennia. It is not in its essence a universal story that can be altered at will, to fit contemporary sensitivities. What it’s about can’t be applied to anyone outside of that world, of that mythical context or be detached from its cultural origins. Its charm is related to its specificity, its complexity, the time and culture that created it. It can neither be simplified nor modernised without losing its power. The believability, the truth of the story – and yes, there is such a thing even in fictional works and the fantasy genre, which is what makes Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy a masterpiece that endures – needs to remain intact. If you are taken out of the story by the insertion of specific contemporary political agendas aimed to school all of us in identity politics, it plagues the film.
A new story could have been written by Nolan to fit the purposes and the themes that are close to his heart and which haunt all his movies (a story about a broken, guilt-ridden dark hero who is looking for redemption, with women playing minor or silent roles existing vaguely in the periphery). Why waste everyone’s chance to see this epic as it was supposed to be seen: as a visual feast! A magical, colourful, vibrating with energy and joy, emotionally impactful, fun adventure! Even though The Odyssey was a series of myths told and retold, part of an oral tradition that lasted generations, the core of them is rooted in a specific morality, a specific context. You can retell it, add your artistic interpretation, but not change its basic core, obliterate its impact, flatten its complexity, erase its layers, change the nature of its characters (or invent new ones to fit your personal agendas) and insert your own morality that changes the entire thing, turning it into “Oppenheimer at Sea”.
The race-swapping casting choices of The Odyssey, even though they are now the norm in many movies, are just confusing, because this is a classic work embedded in a specific geographic location and time frame. It references a history, a culture, a specific demographic. And if the argument “it’s just a fictional story, none of it matters” was valid, then we wouldn’t all be rushing to applaud the creators of Black Panther for taking their inspiration from African art and culture. Or more recently, Moana for showing respect to the specificity of the story it tells, and the culture it recreates, by casting only Polynesian people. Why are we all in agreement that a comic book and a children’s fictional story based on a cartoon (that was very loosely based on Polynesian mythology), HAS to have the right casting and aesthetic but not a literary work that has survived for nearly three millennia, the creation of which signifies one of the great foundational moments in all Western civilisation? Is it per chance EXACTLY because it refers to Western civilisation? Are we so eager to prove we are not racists that we are erasing its importance all so that we can feel better about ourselves?
About half an hour into the film, for example, there is a scene that tells you everything you need to know about this movie: A black guy and an Indian one (who we are asked to believe they are both Greeks) approach an old man on an island (who is played by a Greek actor, who, however - unlike the black guy and the Indian guy - is NOT supposed to be Greek –– are you still with me?) They address him in English, casually saying (with no sense of irony): “We are Greeks. From Ithaca!” He then - for reasons that remain unclear- speaks to them in modern Greek (despite being non-Greek in the movie), and the black guy translates what he said into English, so that the Indian guy can understand (despite being, much like the black guy, also Greek according to the logic of the film). And once the brief interaction is over, the black guy and the Indian guy get in their Viking ship (Yes! Viking!) and sail away. Confused yet? It’s like a Monty Python sketch. And it would have been funny if it wasn’t so fucked up.
The Greek actor mentioned above happens to be the only Greek person who has a speaking role in the entire movie (we are talking about a couple of lines, mind you). And as I said, he is NOT playing a Greek! The Indians, the Mexicans, the Koreans, the Africans, the African Americans, are the Greeks. Not the actual Greek guy! And when he speaks in Greek, we are told he is not! Make of that what you will…
The above scene encapsulates everything Nolan’s The Odyssey is about: the intention to be subversive, didactic and be praised as “inclusive” and “kind” overrides everything: the spirit of the original text AND logic itself. Even though the call for “authenticity” in casting can get too ridiculus, especially in references to gay roles or roles of disabled people (who apparently need to be cast ONLY by actors who are in real life gay or disable otherwise that’s an act of appropriation these days), which sort of undermines what acting is all about: pretending to be something you are not, there are certain exceptions. Like it’s perfectly fine to disregard the race, nationality or sex of an actor if said actor is white or trans, even when they are central to the story. Because by reversing their true race or sex, you get to be congratulated for the fact! Never mind that it changes the story or that you disrespect the intent of the author, whose work you are supposedly adopting, or history itself, if we are talking about historical figures. And never mind that what you are doing is something that is not dissimilar to blackfacing!
It feels like the hijacking of a known IPs is the safest bet when making a movie these days, especially as a vehicle for the trans /woke propaganda. You get to be a hero of the hour for using trans individuals or doing the kind of casting choices that make no sense – but at the same time you are in no real danger of failing given that established IPs, beloved stories like The Odyssey that have their own audience grandfathered into the project, are ensuring success: many of us who are both outraged with the ridiculous casting of Ellen Page as a kind of stand-in for Achilles, or all the other weird casting choice, love The Odyssey so much that we bought a ticket anyway… (The box office success, in short, is not necessarily a testament about embracing the film’s political agendas. At least not wholly. It’s also about how loved this epic is.)
Nolan was not exactly subtle about letting us know what this whole movie was REALLY about. He let us know from the very first minute: the movie begins in the royal court of Odysseus, with Penelope’s suitors sitting at a long banquet table, eating and listening to a black man in box braids who is reciting the heroic deeds of Odysseus in Troy, while banging a stick on the ground. As opening scenes go, this one does a LOT to introduce us to the mess that will follow. The fact that he is obviously an iteration of the poet and creator of The Odyssey, Homer himself, and yet he is 1) a black man inserted for no obvious reason - or back story that would explain it - into an ancient Greek myth that takes place on a tiny Ionian island more of less 3,000 years ago, 2) He looks like a Rastafarian, 3) he thought it was a good idea to bang that stick three times after every single word he uttered. Not keeping time, mind you, not as a form of musical background of sorts, not to emphasise certain places in his diegesis, but three times after every single fucking word, as if to annoy you before you are even given more meaty reasons to be annoyed. 4) he is played by an actual rapper (Travi$ Scott – of course there’s a dollar sign in his name! How else would you be alerted to the fact he’s rich? And of course he made his money by calling women “Bitch”, “Ho” and “Pussy” in his songs). But hey, Nolan is making a point here: “rap is the new oral poetry so a man like Travi$ Scott is JUST like Homer!” Besides, where the hell would Nolan find a rapper who is NOT seeing women as disposable sex objects? So shut up and like it). And 5) the fact that there’s a Korean guy in there too (other than the numerous other black men, Hispanics, etc.), and they are ALL pretending to be Bronze Age Greeks! (And the fact that we are ALL asked to pretend they are!)
We have been warned from the first minute, in short, that what will follow will make no sense whatsoever. Unless you are equally desperate as the creators of this movie are, to call yourself a “Progressive” and by the end of the viewing of the film need an ice bag on your hand from all that padding you’ll be doing on your own back.
The “diverse” cast of The Odyssey may sound great on social media, but it is problematic, as there is very little rooting most members of the cast in Greek culture, keeping you in that time. It is hard to stay in the story when you are trying to figure out how the hell an Indian guy who acts very casually and talks with an American accent using very contemporary slang is an Achaian, for example! I refer of course, to Himesh Patel, who was cast as Erylochus for some reason. He is a perfectly fine actor, when cast in roles that make sense and which suit him. He was very good in Yesterday (2019), for example. When it comes to the Odyssey, is there ANY reason why this actor was specifically chosen for the role of Eurylochus other than his ethnicity? Is there ANYTHING about him that tells you this guy could pass for a Mycenaean Greek? And if you manage to accept that, is there anything about his physique, his demeanour, his everything that tells you he could ever be Odysseus’s relative, his right-hand man, his second in command who fought by his side for 10 years? A tough, hardened by war and the sea journey man in short, and an “unpleasant man” to begin with? Patel, on the contrary, is sort of “genial”, laid back, casual, almost funny! Why couldn’t an actor like Elias Coteas be cast instead, for example? An actor who is actually Greek and who has that hardened I-won’t-take-any-shit-from-you edge the role required. Casting just one Greek thespian (see what I did there?) in this very Greek story would shut the hell up all the Greeks for all eternity. But of course they are not the ones Nolan is trying to shut up. And please. It’s the woke crowd, the ones who are having orgasms every time they “support” something that bathes them in the light of the “kind” ones because it “respects diversity and “inclusivity”.
If you are going to add an Indian dude and have him play the role of Odysseus’s right-hand man, don’t call him Eurylochus, and give us a backstory. We would be fine with that. Tell us how the hell he travelled all the way from his homeland to Greece and how he rose to this position. But of course we are not meant to see him as an Indian, or the other men as African Americans, Africans, Koreans, Mexicans, Colombians, etc. We are supposed to collectively pretend they are all Greeks, because we are “colour blind” and therefore “kind”.( Interestingly, Greeks are too white to be seen in need of the same courtesy, as deserving the same respect and “kindness”, but yet not white enough to be seen as equals to the Northern Europeans… Funny how these things work, huh?)
The Odyssey doesn’t have to be historically accurate; we are being told, given that these are fictional characters. But the thing is, they are still rooted in specific timeframes and geographical locations, and they are specific in terms of culture and ethnicity. They are even rooted in history, given that they come from real historical places and times. Even the Trojans do, since archaeological evidence has revealed that Troy was not an imaginary place. There is a tremendously important cultural attachment to The Odyssey (and The Iliad). Its connection to Hellenic heritage is uninterrupted by time. Greek people still live among the ruins of a past that lingers. Signs of it are scattered in their land. In archaeological sites, in theatres that still echo with the same stories written by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, etc. Modern Greeks use the same language in its root and essence. Traces of Homer’s words still linger untouched by Time, in dialects spoken by islanders across the Aegean, the Ionian, the Mediterranean. From Greece to Southern Italy (see: Calabria) and beyond. Contemporary Greeks walk around with the same names mentioned by Homer, with the same faces (none of which look like a Korean’s, an African’s, an Indian’s or a Northern European’s one for that matter), still speaking of nostos, arete, hubris, aidos. There is an undeniable cultural continuity, unbroken and unshaken even by Christianity or the weight of such a long and crushingly devastating history for its people.
Nobody argues that the movie – which is aimed at an international audience - should have an all-Greek cast or that the text should be in the Greek language, but this is frankly beyond ridiculous: to go out of your way to use every ethnicity in the world, EXCEPT for Greeks in a story that is so attached to Greek culture is, just weird. At the very least! This is intentional; it’s meant to be subversive, and it verges on cultural erasure, not simply appropriation. And if any (literally ANY) of the ethnic groups that are represented in the movie were to be treated in the same manner, there would be hell to pay.
And to our amazement, Nolan is, as it turns out, bad at the writing bit too, when dealing with this sort of fantasy epic genre at least. The dialogue is written in a language that’s casual, prosaic. Not dignified, elevated, heroic, poetic, as an epic of this kind deserves: “10 years on this fucking beach”, “throw in some other stuff”, “Fuck off”, “mom”, “dad”, “daddy”, “mommy’s boy”, etc. All of it sounds ridiculous when uttered by people wearing ancient Greek tunics and armours (even when they are as badly designed as these are), walking in a world that existed 3,000 years ago. It breaks the spell. It breaks authenticity. And more so because of the choice to have everyone speak in an American accent - including the many British actors for some reason. Not saying that the tradition of using an upper-class British accent in all movies related to the Greco-Roman world is ideal, but it is certainly less incongruous than using American accents. Because there is a formality to it, and if the writers know what they are doing, an elegance, a gravitas that keeps you in the story. That tells you these are not contemporary characters doing everyday things.
All the modernisms, in terms of language (on top of the ridiculous casting choices and the modern psychology – more on that later) are just jarring and are taking you out of the story. This casual use of contemporary linguistic tropes is not humanising the characters; it damages their believability. It makes them silly. It turns the whole thing into a bad joke. The “informal” language is not eliminating class structures (though how hilarious is it that the people who created this, see themselves as “classless”, as having the right to preach to anyone about class!); it’s simply disrespectful, and it’s getting you out of the movie, the time frame, the myth, the everything. Sadly, it’s common enough these days. In the Netflix documentary “Alexander: The Making of a God”, for example, Alexander the Great is addressed as “Alex” (!), while Ptolemy Soter (the historian, the one who was to go on to succeed him and found the Ptolemaic Kingdom that ushered in the Hellenistic era) is addressed as “Ptol”! Silly us, we expected the auteur Nolan to do better.
Nolan, in his efforts to teach us that there are other races in the world other than white people (because duh! we are all too stupid to know that, or too racist to acknowledge it), also gave us a sub-Saharan Helen of Troy by casting Lupita Nyong’o in the role of a Spartan woman. The controversy caused (intentionally, of course) became a great selling point for the movie as everyone was eager to appear “progressive” by offering their support for this “wonderfully diverse” cast. The reason why Lupita Nyong’o was a weird casting choice as a Spartan woman is the same as why Dustin Hoffman, Eddie Redmayne, Al Pacino, or Peter Dinklage would be as Odysseus. Because it doesn’t make sense. Because how actors look, their “energy”, age, body types, race, ethnicity define the kind of roles they are suited to play.
Even Matt Damon is a weird choice (though not on the same level) as there is something very Northern European about him. A coldness, a steely “efficiency” that’s very UnGreek-like, if you know what I mean. Even though he did a fine job as the one-note, sad sock that is Nolan’s Odysseus, Damon’s performance is too modern and therefore too distracting, too disconnected. Plus he is - no matter how many hours he spent in the gym – much like Tom Hanks, an everyman type of actor. An everyman with a hidden dark, violent side, perhaps, but not the hero of epic myth. Unlike Sean Bean, whom I always have trouble placing in contemporary stories in which he is not required to wear armour and hold a sword, and who was perfectly cast in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy (2004), giving us an excellent Odysseus: charismatic, intelligent, charming, heroic, cheeky, reckless, arrogant, and yet somehow likeable, which is exactly how he is written by Homer. Even Armand Assante was closer to the original Odysseus (The Odyssey, 1997), because he had that “trickster” aspect figured out. Plus he looked like someone from that region of the world.
As for Zendaya, the darling of Hollywood, she does very little because she is asked to do very little as Athena (or rather as Odysseus’s hallucination). All she does is look at him reproachfully from time to time. She, of course, HAD to be in The Odyssey, given that she is a beautiful, ethnically ambiguous woman: black enough to make everyone feel like they are godamn heroes for hiring her, and white enough to make her hiring acceptable even by right-wingers. No wonder she’s in everything!
On the same note, John Leguizamo (much like Lupita Nyong’o, who was advocating fervently about the importance of respecting African culture in Black Panther) loves preaching to us all about what an abomination is when white people are playing Hispanics, and yet (much like Lupita) had absolutely no problem playing a Greek. Though we have to give it to him: he was rather good as Eumaeus, the blind servant of Odysseus, adding substance and heart to a small role. And he DOES look like a Greek in this - sort of - so it makes sense. It’s believable. It keeps you in the moment! This is how it’s done! He was a great choice despite not being a Greek because he 1) looks like one. 2) he understood his role, 3) he was damn good at it.
Body type, age, height, weight, level of fitness, physicality, and, yes, race and colour are factors casting directors consider when choosing the right people for a project. Make-up and prosthetics can get you so far…Even eye colour can affect the casting, let alone someone’s race. Especially when it comes to historical or cultural figures. If it weren’t so, casting directors would not exist. You can’t have Danny DeVito, for example, cast as an Olympian. Chris Hemsworth as an accountant. (Not in serious dramas, in any case). Emma Stone as Harriet Tubman. Idris Elba as Kennedy, Kathy Bates in a Madonna biopic, Octavia Spencer in a Naomi Campbell one, etc., etc. How actors look, like it or not, matters, and it defines what roles they get. And it is one of the reasons why they are often typecast: because their type is too specific, and because we all want to see stories that make sense. Movies are a visual medium. It uses images to tell stories. And when these choices are fucked up, it affects the storytelling. Simple as that
Going back to the casting of Helen: even though Homer has cleverly avoided giving a direct description of her, prompting everyone to imagine her as their own model of ideal beauty, we know that she was Spartan, which is by definition Greek, therefore white. Plus, Art has provided more than 2,000 years of depictions of her. I guess none were accurate… But it was rather interesting reading the comments on social media: one group playing the amateur classicists by quoting Homer’s bit about her having “white arms”, or Euripides and the poetess Sappho who wrote that she was blond. The other group coming with: “Well, Homer only meant that she was not a peasant by writing she had white arms, and not sunburned by working outside. That doesn’t mean she was white”. And my favourite: “Well, they didn’t mean she was blond; maybe they meant she has a blond aura!” (blond aura, ladies and gentlemen)
Lupita Nyong’o was given two roles actually, playing both Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra, implying that they are identical twins, only they are not, given that according to myth, they have different fathers: Helen is the daughter of Zeus, Clytemnestra the daughter of Tyndareus, so this doesn’t make sense in this respect either. But of course the reason why she was given two roles is to increase her screen time and, by that, justify the marketing noise created by her casting. Besides, if the two sisters were identical, why were both Menelaus and Agamemnon courting Helen? (given that they were fighting over not her personality but her beauty…) Not to mention that given that Helen’s beauty was exceptionally unique, it means she, by definition, was unlike any other woman on Earth. Including her sister. (It’s just bizarre, pointless choices stacked on top of each other)
Well, “you are arguing about whether the casting of a mythical heroine who was hatched out of an egg is accurate!” (which is how Helen was born according to the myth: after her mother was “visited” by Zeus in the form of a swan), we are being told when we express doubtfulness about the logic of it all. But that’s how myths AND religions work (and for the ancient Greeks, mythology and religious beliefs were one and the same): They are based on nonsense which we elevate into symbolism and eventually sacrament. Ancient Greeks said Helen was hatched from a swan’s egg; we claim that Christ was born out of a virgin. Both are equally unlikely and yet equally deserving of respect, given that faith comes into it, and there are entire mental structures built around them. Plus, if you are using ancient Greek myths, why not respect them? Or why twist them to fit your contemporary agendas? Besides, how naïve, how mind-blowingly arrogant to think that you are singlehandedly erasing racism by casting a Kenyan woman as an ancient Greek one? How is that changing the history of slavery and racism in America, for example? This is just self-serving empty gestures that benefit no one – other than the ones making them…. This is just self-congratulatory nonsense. And avoiding cancellation pitfalls…
And how is that helping Lupita Nyong’o herself, given that it put her in the eye of the storm? I do hope that for her sake she never spends a minute reading the kind of nastiness that was aimed at her by social media commenters, who were handed their ammunition by Nolan himself, and were given permission to stick to their guns and aim. Did Nolan think that Far Right-wingers would stand in awe of her four-minute-long performance and reverse their lifelong political views and prejudices on the spot? But of course, this is not about changing anything. This is about the far Left’s laughably desperate need for self-applause. Besides, how insulting is it for a white man to tell us that black women can be beautiful too! Thank God for Nolan for spotting it and letting us know. This is some pretty backward, condescending, self-congratulatory shit (an opinion shared by many black people, by the way) that most of us thought we, as a culture, have outgrown. But apparently not. It’s the equivalent of white women in sitcoms and rom-coms letting us know that the one black guy in the film is mind-blowingly sexy (even when he is just an average, Ok looking guy). But how else could we get it that the creators of the movies or TV shows are not racists at all?! And how else can the black audience be placated? It’s just condescending, profit-driven nonsense. They know it, and we know it…
And then we go to the other big selling point of the film: the casting of a trans individual (Ellen Page, who is now pretending to be a miniature man named Elliot Page) playing Sinon. The character of Sinon, is not actually mentioned in the Odyssey (or The Iliad) but in various other ancient texts where he is named as a cousin of Odysseus and almost his equal in cunningness. According to these sources, he was a “brilliant, iron-willed operative”, a spy who pretended to be a defector to lure the Trojans and convince them that the wooden Horse was genuinely an offering to Athena. He was also the one who opened the hatch to unleash the hidden Greeks and signal the fleet to attack by lighting a fire.
There is something meta actually in the whole thing: In the ancient Greek sources, Sinon is, like I said, a deceitful man, an “artful trickster” who sheds false tears when he meets the Trojans and fools them into believing that he is the opposite of what he is in reality: that he is a victim of cruelty and injustice, instead of the perpetrator of both. Demanding their kindness while he is leading them to their downfall (does it remind you of anything?) In Nolan’s adaptation, he is seen as genuinely innocent, a true hero! A man of immense integrity and bravery who deserves honour, reverence, respect, and to be avenged. And he is played by the tiniest of women who pretends to be a man. Trying to fool all of us that what our eyes can see and our minds can recognise is not real. Bless her tiny heart, she can hardly walk carrying the weight of her own armour - that wobbly walk on the beach alone! Nolan - who is responsible for exposing her like that - is well aware of the fact (of course he is), which is why he made sure we don’t get to see her full figure as she is walking, nor do we see her standing next to other men in anything other than close-ups. Because the deception (and the power of the propaganda) MUST be preserved at all costs…
Sinon, is of course, additionally used as a proxy of Achilles, or at least he is the reason why Achilles was not included in the film: given that it would have been beyond ridiculous to cast Ellen Page as the greatest warrior of the ancient world, a new character had to be shoehorned in to justify her presence in the film (and by that, use her as a propaganda tool of the trans agenda AND get those delicious woke ticket sales, and that sweet marketing fanfare: few things can motivate the woke crowd more than being faced with the opportunity to “defend” the “defenceless” on social media and then at the box office). So this bizarre casting choice additionally robs us of getting to see Achilles in the Underworld (we get to see Sinon instead!), which is possibly the single most interesting bit in the entire poem: when Odysseus descends into Hades, the land of the dead, he is approached by Achilles, who reveals his regret for choosing a short and glorious life, instead of a long peaceful and obscure one. To everyone’s astonishment, Achilles reveals that he would rather live off the land as a farming hand of a poor man than be the lord among the dead, celebrated by the living. It’s a shocking thing to come out of the mouth of the greatest hero of the Achaeans. It’s a tremendously significant incident given that in the ancient world virility, heroism, and glory (kleos) were seen as the supreme virtues for a man. This type of introspection is uncharacteristic and, in many ways, revolutionary, and signifies an almost postmodern perspective and a foundational moment in ancient literature! But we don’t get to see any of it. So that a trans actress will get more attention.
Ellen Page – much like Lupita Nyong’o - being forced to become the victim of vicious ridicule when posing with her bodyguard (see photo below) is on Nolan: HE put her in the position to become the victim of all of it, by 1) casting her, and 2) making her the focus of the marketing, even if she’s hardly in the film. Despite the efforts of transactivists who are collectively pretending she is actually a man, and not a tiny, short-haired woman in an oversized man’s suit, the internet was in agreement that she looked like what she is: a woman, and they have subjected her to the kind of misogynistic comments they aimed at any other women out there…
But we have to ask: is there ANYTHING to Ellen Page’s presence that tells you this is the perfect casting for a Mycenaean warrior who has already survived 10 years of war? Is there ANY reason she was cast in this specific role that was elevated as the moral core of the entire movie, other than the fact that she is trans? And likewise, is there ANYTHING in Lupita Nyong’o that tells you she is a Spartan woman who lived at a time when clan politics (marrying people from the same genetic pool, in short) were not just important; they were a matter of survival? Especially in Sparta?
And even if it is a noble “anti-racist” choice, how is it eliminating racism? It’s a legitimate question actually: how come it is seen as “racist” to have an all-white cast when you are telling a story that refers to white people, but it is not racism to claim that a Kenyan woman, an Indian guy, a Mexican, a Colombian, or a Korean is Greek, or that Homer is a black rastafarian? Or that Greeks, who have laid the foundations of Western Civilisation, have no specific characteristics, no ethnicity and by association no culture? Why isn’t THAT unacceptable? HOW is it not hypocritical? And if the director is allowed to do all that because it is a fantasy story, then give us a fucking fantasy story! Create something new that’s wholly yours and do a good job at it. Not this half-baked, grey, depressing, rushed and at the same time, glacially slow sadness that has no magic, no joy, no sense of wonder.
Weird casting choices are not promoting anti-racism; they are pretending racism never happened, rewriting history in the process. And they are, on the contrary, encouraging racism by giving ammunition to racists: It’s an Asian as Isaac Newton in Doctor Who (Nathaniel Curtis), a black Anne Boleyn (Jodie Turner-Smith), a Black Cleopatra in the supposedly “historical” Netflix documentary that somehow ignores that she was a descendant of Ptolemy, aka a Greek woman. Or an Indian man (Himesh Patel again!) playing the role of Dr Watson in “Enola” - Sherlock Holmes’s friend and an Afghan war veteran (who fought for the Brits) His casting singlehandedly “fixing” colonialism AND racism - by pretending they never happened. (Ah! Hollywood!) Or a black Lady Russel in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. In what universe would a black woman be a Lady, aka a part of British aristocracy during the Georgian Era? If she were anywhere near the home of Lady Russell, she would be stuck in the kitchen cooking her food, scraping mud from her shoes, or doing her laundry. Unnoticed, unrecognised, underpaid (if at all), barely seen as a human being. What these casting choices do is a whitewashing of the history of racism and slavery, while they are, of course, pretending to do the opposite of that…
We all agree that blackface casting was a bad, bad thing. We all agree that Mickey Rooney playing a Chinese guy in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey Hepburn as a Native American woman in The Unforgiven, John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror etc., etc., were ridiculous casting choices, so why continue on this path? The assumption that every ethnic group in the world, other than white Europeans, is entitled to their unique stories, history, culture, language, and identity is interestingly only assumed by wealthy white Brits and far-Leftist White Americans (who think they can erase their guilt-ridden past by empty gestures). No black or Asian director would ever do something this dumb, I don’t think! This is not about promoting anti-racist ideals; this is about white guilt. It’s a laughably simplistic, childish, naive and utterly useless remedy for social justice. Like putting a rose on top of an open, festering wound instead of an antibiotic cream. It’s nothing but an overcorrection for a problem that cannot be solved by silly symbolic gestures. Or Hindsight. America’s slavery past cannot be erased no matter how many Black women are cast in white women’s roles. And neither will British colonialism be erased if we cast an Indian in every big-budget movie in the role of white Europeans.
If you are making a movie about the myths of any precolonial African country, would a bunch of white guys be accepted as a reasonable casting choice and not an anachronism, a cross-cultural abomination, cultural appropriation and downright racist crime? It just doesn’t make sense contextually. Even if this was not a retelling of The Odyssey, but a new story set in the same timeframe, you still can’t do this unless you offer some plausible explanation: how the hell did an Indian man, an African and a Korean travel all the way to Greece, and become part of a Greek crew? It took Odysseus 10 years to go from the top bit of Greece to Ithaca…) What kind of vessels did they have? What kind of navigational tools? Or magic knowledge? What were their reasons for such a journey? How come they all had the same idea, beginning their journeys from different parts of the world and then somehow all ending up in Ithaca meeting Odysseus? How come they all have Greek names now? Gives us a reason, a back story or something if you are expecting us to believe you. But of course no reason is necessary; we are just supposed to play along and eat this shit up like ice cream, and say thank you.
Interestingly enough, by trying to pass messages of inclusivity, Nolan is committing two of the greatest sins of the woke mindset: ethnic erasure and culture appropriation! But who’s gonna be brave enough to say it, right? And for what? Casting every ethnicity on earth and having them pass as Greeks won’t solve the immigration problem. Won’t make all of us hold hands and sing Kumbaya till we all melt into one colour. Different traditions, cultures, ethnicities, colours will continue to exist regardless of how many race-swapping Hollywood is trying to shove down our throats in every TV show and movie it creates, as a form of “activism”.
And by the way, to make that clear, not everyone who is still able to name the bullshit turns into a racist uber conservative. Someone ought to let them know: being able to distinguish between reality and bullshit doesn’t make you a Right-winger/conservative, a hater of the downtrodden and an anti-immigration, racist bigot. And recognising that Ellen Page is a woman (one who has gone through an unnecessary mastectomy and cut her hair really short, but a woman) and recognising also that casting her in the role of a Bronze Age warrior is a silly choice doesn’t make you a Right-winger either. It’s just that our patience, suspension of disbelief – and our willingness to show lenience - can go so far.
But Hollywood’s insistence on selling woke propaganda disguised as Art, IS destroying the Left. Is making the far Right more powerful. By 1) offering them ammunition, and 2) by making people who have always voted Labour / Left rethink their choices, ask themselves “why the hell am I being asked to support this nonsense? How stupid do they think we are?” So off they go to the Right! (Which might have been the plan all along in those who puppeteered Wokism in the first place…) They are NOT killing the beast of racism; they are feeding it. Making the Far Right stronger every day. All it does, in short, is make the cultural and political divide wider. Making everyone who still has their wits about them feel politically displaced, betrayed and in awe of the total nonsense that has taken over so many well-educated and well-meaning people. Who actually think they can change the world by this crap. Who have fallen into the trap of woke elitism, and the luxury activism of millionaires who have nothing to lose - and much to gain - by promoting all this nonsense. Spoon-feeding it to us every chance they get. Empowering the opposite side in the process.
We can’t use postmodern hindsight to judge or reverse past events. Symbolic gestures can’t erase the wounds lelt by sexism, racism, colonialism, imperialism. It can’t erase what happens every day in war zones, on battlefields, in bombed neighbourhoods, in refugee camps around the world by those who are prioritising their profit. All these symbolic gestures are not changing the world. None of it matters. Especially if you are on the receiving end of the privileges that were afforded to you because of sexism, racism, colonialism, imperialism. What is the use of being suddenly infuriated by Columbus if you are an American, for example? Being mad with the colonial history of Britain if you are an Englishman living in a nation whose power was built by it, affording you the right to have these kinds of luxury emotions that cost you absolutely nothing? History can’t be erased. It just exists. Teaching us. Just stop the second-hand preaching is what I’m saying.
It’s all superficial. People of colour are given these race swap roles, and by that forced to become the focus of the marketing of these movies, to fool all of us into thinking that they matter in the industry. But what is really happening is that they are offered the “right” to be present, not to have a real impact. This is about the ticking of boxes, about diversity quotas and award eligibilities. About tokenism: earning “progressive” points for the industry. About positive social media comments that can be translated into tickets.
Plus, the race swap roles are robbing people of colour of the opportunities of telling their own stories. They are turning them into generalities. Into darker versions of white people. Promoting the luxury, white person’s perspective that “colour doesn’t matter”. But of course it does! Ask those who have been denied chances to be their authentic selves (not a white version of them). Ask those who have been denied survival even on the most rudimentary of levels because of it! This is about NOT changing the power dynamics: a handful of women (Zendaya being their queen) and a handful of people of colour are only offered symbolic gestures to be used as examples that the industry is not prejudiced. So that the rest won’t demand to be given real agency. A real voice. Real power: women (of any colour actually) and men of colour are still, in their majority, of course, being denied the chances to become the actual creators of movies. The people calling the shots. The system still doesn’t back their projects, finance specific to their own experiences stories, celebrate their specificities, their struggles, their history, their culture. (And the white audience – the same one who is now drooling because Odysseus has a multicultural crew) still doesn’t support such movies when they are, by some miracle, made) The industry still doesn’t open doors and roll any kind of red carpets for them. Which would be true evidence of “progressiveness” not lip service that benefits (and enriches) the same one group it benefited (and enriched) 20, 50, or 100 years ago…
We are collectively asked to participate (and we do! Look at how much money this movie has made already) in all these distortions of reality, which are injected into culture, normalising the phenomenon and letting us know that this is how things are: a man in a five o’clock shadow puts on a wig? You HAVE to pretend he is a woman. Otherwise you are a bigot. An Indian dude, a black dude, a Mexican, a Colombian pretend to be Greek? A black woman to be a Spartan one circa 2800 BC? You better believe it, or else you’re prejudiced. A tiny five-foot woman is cast as a ferocious warrior in an ancient epic? You better go along with it, or else you are proving you are a transphobe. A privileged white British director casts every other ethnicity on Earth but Greeks in a movie based on a literary work that is so attached to Greek culture? You better pretend it’s not intentional, and you better buy those tickets and applaud and write reviews full of praise, or else you are proving you are the opposite of progressive and surely a racist! Reacting to any of this madness, in short, brands YOU as mad! This is the actual definition of gaslighting, actually.
Conclusively, a multicultural cast when the text does not call for it, the shoehorning of trans actors in every project, is not displaying a willingness for inclusion but the existence of fear. It is not an act of defiance and bravery; it’s the opposite of both: it’s a way to silence uncomfortable arguments, to silence dissent. And to make money!
It is not an act of rebellion and kindness but the path of least resistance.
Thank you. I read this and appreciate it. I restacked. There are creative ways to incorporate diversity, but Nolan’s efforts, and most race swapping, aren’t it. I also don’t think it’s necessary in every story.
What a great read.
Thank you